


omne trium perfectum

by civilorange



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, F/M, Gen, Will add more as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-04-24 01:10:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4899766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/civilorange/pseuds/civilorange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Clarke,” a cracking whisper, foundations forgotten to the quicksand below, “Please, Clarke, look at me.”</p>
<p>And you do—stupidly you do.</p>
<p>She’s beautiful in ways that aren’t put into Hollywood movies, or into mainstream magazines—no Photoshop, and no perfectly smooth edges. Lexa is the spiral of a hurricane barreling toward a tropical coast, gaining strength, spinning faster and faster until she hits her inevitable end against forest edges and mountain tops. Headfast into oblivion. She is the nebula on the other side of the galaxy, hanging in the black of space for eons, and eons—colors, and textures, and <i>stardust</i> mixing together and pulling apart. She is an alluring mess, a heartfelt tragedy.</p>
<p>And you’re just goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. this is the prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So, this has been kicking around in my head for the last few days, a modern version of these two. This one, unlike my other story, is told from Clarke's perspective. It is going to have a much different feel to it, though again, as usual, I don't have a concrete plot planned for this. General premise is two childhood friends get separated on the night of their high school graduation for reasons Clarke can't exactly understand. Fast forward a bunch of years, and we'll see where the chips fall. This is just the prologue, a kind of cold open, a short little scene setter.

**June, 2005. Westchester, New York**

You realize you’ve only ever seen Lexa composed and together, her pieces all snug and fitted while the world threatened to rock off its axis around her. She was your touchstone, your solid foundation; the only thing you knew would still be there when everything sifted away like sand on the beach. Pulled out to sea to get lost amongst the deep dark below. She stands before you now, drenched and shivering, her hands thrown wide, her face upturned like she is placating some vengeful god—and not some high school girl who doesn’t know how to wait until she’s alone to cry.

“Clarke!” Like a lone warrior going to war, your name is a battle cry, the sounds getting tangled into the consuming rumble of thunder, her tragic features illuminated by the lightning as it chases dragons across the sky. “I’m sorry! I should have told you sooner.”

You press your cheek against the cool glass of the window, the gale winds of the storm thrumming through the walls of your house. You want to just close your eyes as you had when you were a girl—squeeze them shut and crawl beneath your bed and pretend this wasn’t happening. That when you finally crack them open, Lexa will be laying stomach down on your floor, her cheek resting on her forearm, blinking those _eyes_ at you.

“What’re you doing under here, starling?” She’d say it so lightly, her lips never parting, but she’d smile without teeth—she’d smile with her eyes.

“Waiting.” You’d always reply.

One of her eyebrows would perk, “For what?”

“I don’t know.” For the embarrassment to go away, for your mother to finally come home, for your heart to stop breaking with every new disappointment. You couldn’t put those things into words because they live inside you, and you don’t believe they could exist anywhere else.

But Lexa lives inside you too, she has the lion’s share of your heart, she’s made her home in your ribs and around your lungs—even that young, you’d known. She’d blink slowly and nod her chin against her arm like _I don’t know_ was a perfectly valid thing. “Alright then,” when she’d whisper, the accent she tried to dissolve would peek through, “Mind if I wait with you?”

Why do those memories seem like whole forevers ago?

Why does the girl standing on your front lawn live outside, and not inside your chest—if she lived there, she’d never be able to walk away, she’d never be able to _break_ your heart, because she’d be holding it in her hands. She’d protect it like she always had; she’d safeguard it from sadness, from disappointment, from all those things that pillage the spirit through the years.

Those small let downs that build, and build, and build, until you’re no longer a monument, and only the barest bricks to make one. Almost a person, almost whole—picked apart by simply living.

You can only just make out the raspy, “Clarke, please.” Lexa has a tragedy written in her bones, a story that not even you know all the chapters to. Those large empty places you had never questioned before glare at you, like they would have let you know this was going to happen—like they would have prepared you for this mortal wound.

 _Omne_ _trium_ _perfectum_.

It was a phrase your father had loved; the idea that everything comes in threes. Good or bad, it was some fundamental corner of the universe that science couldn’t explain. That there was some cosmic rhythm that was made up of stardust and meteor tails, which went above and beyond anything logical, anything assured.

When you’d walked outside this morning and your car wouldn’t start, you’d simply shrugged it off as bad luck. You’d called someone to give you a lift. When you couldn’t find your graduation speech, you panicked—but Lexa had found it shoved down beside her passenger seat. You’d been too busy hugging her to think about your father’s favorite idiom—one, two, _three_.

Which is why you should have seen this coming.

Graduation was supposed to be that pivotal moment in your life that you’d look back on with fondness, which you’d be able to pin point as the exact moment everything started for you. A life that wasn’t monitored by block schedules and interim reports; where you weren’t still trying to convince yourself that you knew how to play the flute, and that Lexa’s Selica would somehow get the two of you from coast to coast.

All those things seemed so important when you got up this morning.

Now? Now they mean nothing.

The rain falls without care, smothering everything in the scent of ozone and turned earth—rich, and living, and present. There’s something refreshing about the rain, something that brings to mind new life, a clean breath of air.

Rain meant you’d leave the window unlocked, and the curtains open. Rain meant you’d turn the light off and watch the lightning crawl across the sky. Rain meant you’d wrap yourself in your bathrobe and wait—sometimes only until eight or nine, sometimes until midnight. It didn’t matter when, because you knew that at some point, you’d hear the swift exhale of breath as the window was pushed open, and the soft weight of feet hitting your floor.

You know the sound of sure fingers scaling the trellis on the side of the house, you don’t move your face off the glass, or deign to open your eyes. If only the storm would open up and swallow you whole, take this moment away from you and leave you someplace else—someplace where Lexa isn’t leaving, where the future you had planned in your mind was not just fantasy, but reality.

The hiss of wind is louder, the droplets of water hitting your cheeks cold, and you squeeze your eyes shut harder, to block out the scent of spring, and the chill of winter. The click of your window being locked is the last thing you hear—no, that isn’t right. You can hear the hollow breaths of the girl beside you, how she pulls air in greedily through her nose and holds her breath. Surely presses the captured air against the inside of her ribs until it hurt.

“Clarke,” a cracking whisper, foundations forgotten to the quicksand below, “Please, Clarke, look at me.”

And you do—stupidly you do.

She’s beautiful in ways that aren’t put into Hollywood movies, or into mainstream magazines—no Photoshop, and no perfectly smooth edges. Lexa is the spiral of a hurricane barreling toward a tropical coast, gaining strength, spinning faster and faster until she hits her inevitable end against forest edges and mountain tops. Headfast into oblivion. She is the nebula on the other side of the galaxy, hanging in the black of space for eons, and eons—colors, and textures, and _stardust_ mixing together and pulling apart. She is an alluring mess, a heartfelt tragedy.

And you’re just goodbye.

It is something in the soulful gray of her eyes that ignites that spark inside your chest, that dormant fire that ebbs and flows through your veins. “I’m so mad at you!” Like a gunshot, the words rippling between you, as your hands shove out and hit her squarely in both shoulders—she jostles, her muscles tensing and then loosening. Both of Lexa’s hand come up to clasp your wrists, to hold them loosely within her own, though you know if you tugged you’d be able to get away. She simply holds them against the wet fabric of her dress-shirt.

“I know.”

Is that what drowning sounds like? To gasp between the droplets of water, to feel heavy and full, and somehow accepting? She doesn’t look alright, but you see the way her throat bobs, the way her jaw tenses—she’s keeping it all inside still, even now. She’s swallowing back pieces of herself like she can simply stomach the pounds of flesh she’s removed.

“Furious!” You attempt to shove her again, your hands only pushing enough to press her back against the window, to hear the squelch of the carpet beneath her sneakered feet.

“I know.”

Your anger is short lived, because it wasn’t true—you’re sad, not angry. You’re _devastated_. You want to crawl beneath your bed and sob, you want to curl around yourself and nurse this wounds that don’t show on your skin, but in your eyes. Looking at Lexa is like looking at a poem, is reading all the things that had been felt when the author had penned the words. In the dim lighting of your room, her eyes are their true green—bright and glassy, though you can’t tell if the moisture on her face is tears, or simply the rain.

Maybe both.

You’re falling forward without really thinking about it, into the strong curve of her body, into the circle of her arms that had already been lifting to pull you close. Your nose presses into the wet warm line of her neck, your lips against the bump of her collarbone. You can feel the tremble of her spine underneath your clawing hands, the way she holds herself around you, like you’re something precious, something she’s afraid of breaking.

You thought you would have wanted long winded explanations, in depth reasons why this is happening, but now—with her heartbeat thundering under your lips, you can think of only having these moments left. How this girl will soon slip out of your life, into the dark of the witching hour and away for good. Into the rest of the world that seems so impossibly large now.

“Do you have to go?” She does, you know this, but your voice shudders and her arms tighten around you.

“I do.” Rasping and weak, as if she cannot breathe even for all the air she pulls into her lungs.

Opening your eyes just a bit, you see your shadows on the wall—a mess of darkness thrown out against the far wall, you can see the curve of Lexa’s spine, and the way her hands press into the blonde of your hair. Two people pressing together so truly, it is impossible to say where you end, and Lexa begins.

“This is when you say we’ll be together forever, right?” There is no hope in you, not really, just a tired kind of acceptance that weighs down your bones and sits sluggishly in your blood.

“I don’t think so, Clarke.” Her lips against the crown of your head.

“Just this once, Lexa, for me,” leaning back, pulling away enough to find her solemn eyes, “Can you pretend you’re not so infuriatingly pragmatic?”

And like always, Lexa does her best to do as you wish. Without hesitation, without thought.

She'll do this for you, because she can't stay.

“Clarke Griffin,” she begins, taking two steps away, then two more, “Do you believe in the multiverse?” You laugh without realizing, the sound surprised out of you, because that isn’t what you had expected. It doesn’t match the glint in her eyes, or the half-smile on her lips.

“It’s the idea that, somehow, all of history—all of time and space—is happening at this very moment. A billion-trillion possibilities laid out side by side, over and under, in and out. Are you following?” You’re nodding, even though you really aren’t—you’d never been one much for theories. Let alone the ones that sounds like insanity. But Lexa is nodding along with you, stepping closer—reclaiming those four steps—until your cheeks are cradled gently in her hands.

“All these universes, all these possibilities, and for one second let’s pretend it is absolutely true.” Her voice lowers, thickening with her whisper—gaining that lilt that she tries to hide behind her middle-of-nowhere accent. “Somewhere out there, there is a version of me—right now—who didn’t have to leave, who didn’t break your heart, and make you cry. Maybe this version of me can say what she feels,”

You’re crying, and she’s crying—but she’s always managed it more gracefully than you. They fall silently down her cheeks, catching in her thick eyelashes, and rolling down the slim line of her neck. Like she doesn’t even realize she’s crying—like she doesn’t _know_.

“Maybe there’s a version of us that knows what it’s like to grow old together, to watch the world change from our split level in the country. Where we are who we want to be, and not who the world makes us.” One of her hands curls back into the tangle of your hair, pulling you closer somehow, the lengths of your bodies flush—you can feel the horse gallop beat of her heart. _Thump, ta-thump, thump, ta-thump._ “Don’t you think that’s its own kind of forever?”

“Lex,” you can’t even get her name out, it’s lost somewhere at the back of your throat.

“Maybe we would have had more time at the end of the world—just us and the dropping bombs, where everything that the world knows is gone. You, the falling star, and me, the ground there to catch you.” Even if her lips don’t tip, you see the smile in her eyes—a sad, genuine smile. Leaning forward, she presses her forehead against yours—inhaling deeply. Like her shoulders have gotten so heavy she can hardly lift them anymore.

“Lexa,” you’re surely a mess—your nose running, your hands curled like claws into the dark blue of her graduation gown, pulling her closer like you can’t be two people. She kisses you now, breathing you deep like she can only find sustenance off the taste of your lips—her fingers dig into the tangle of your hair, while her other hand tips your jaw. Consuming you.

It is messy, and desperate, and _final_ , and your heart aches, and it thunders, and it _cries_. And how can this be your life? Why did you deserve this pain? Her lips are trembling, and her damp curling hair hangs in her eyes when she pulls away. Warm, and bright, and _alive_. She looks like you have stolen something precious from her, and she cannot imagine it somewhere else.

You’d told your mother once that Lexa felt like oxygen—that she was so intrinsic to your survival. But that isn’t true, is it? She’s just a high school girl; beautiful, and genuine, and loyal—but people lose high school girls every day. They graduate, and move on—fall in love again, start a family. And when you go back, ten years later, you can hardly recognize that girl anymore—she’s be turned, and twisted by life. Into someone else.

In your heart, you know that isn’t Lexa—but your head tries to convince you anyway.

“Clarke,” you’ll never _not_ love how Lexa says your name; hitting the _k_ hard with a click of her tongue. “I’d like to see those forevers.” She’s whispering against your lips, sharing the hot air between your mouths, not pulling away—because she know, soon she’ll have to for good.

Again, you say, “Do you have to leave?”

“Tomorrow,” midnight has chimed, and tomorrow is _today_ , “but right now let’s spend a few eternities together.”

If only you had so much time.


	2. quicker than a summer night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You close your eyes and picture all those lost seconds; see them sitting in the curve of your palm, spilling like granules of sand when you spread your fingers. Caught on a western wind, pulled into the soft haze of morning. Lost in a whole different way now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, now that Torn Down is finished, and I'm working on the plan for the sequel, I've shifted back over here to this modern setting Clexa. I've decided to go Momento style with the flash backs, they're going to go in reverse; starting at the goodbye at graduation, and getting earlier and earlier until some things make more sense. So, aside from that we've moved ahead ten years, and the gangs all together in the City that Never Sleeps. Clarke's a doctor, though so much of her wishes she'd gone to art school, and she's right in the middle of trying to keep life away by working too much, and pretending that it's good for her.
> 
> Things will be picking up soon, don't you worry.

**October, 2015. New York, New York.**

Time is a strange thing, it is constant, and absolute, and _present_. But then there is daylight savings time, and leap years, and lost seconds. You feel like you've collected all that forgotten time in your pockets. Stashed away in a pair of your favorite denims, the ones you haven't worn since high school. The ones with the grass stained knees and a ripped out back pocket. All that time clustered together for a rainy day; waiting to be used on so many _almosts_ and _maybes_.

You probably should have used it by now.

If only to get a full night's sleep. To slip away in those moments when your eyes close, but your mind stays open; in those twilight hours just before the sun slips over the horizon. When you can stand on your balcony in the cool blue of autumn and imagine you can see past the buildings, past the billboards and high-rises, and out into that forever blue. Imagine the worlds that exist somewhere on the other side; foreign places that are bright, and real, and new. 

You close your eyes and picture all those lost seconds; see them sitting in the curve of your palm, spilling like granules of sand when you spread your fingers. Caught on a western wind, pulled into the soft haze of morning. Lost in a whole different way now.

Except, they were never yours to begin with; they were borrowed, and stolen, and found. A haphazard collection of other people's seconds, and hours, and years. Like the dragons in the stories your father read to you when you were young, you'd hoard the time like gold. Fill your apartment with wayward minutes, and sleepwalk through the years.

At least, that’s what it felt like after what seems like an eternity at work.

Human tolerance is a strange thing; you’ve been awake for nearly two days without more than a blink of sleep, you’ve pillaged lunch and dinner out of vending machines, and you’ve completed a successful nine hour surgery, but once you’ve stepped through the door of your quiet third floor apartment, you can make it no further than the well broken in couch in the living room. That extra forty steps to the bedroom is simply _incomprehensible_ in your current state. But that's alright, because as your body falls into the perfectly sloped impression in the cushions, you can see out your window to the living, breathing mess that is New York City.

Even after a decade in the bright noise of the city, you still marvel how authentically _false_ the whole place is—it is the copy of something lost, some original that has slipped away unnoticed. So it remains, being something that you can never quiet be sure it isn’t. And you’re alright with that. Because New York is a city of reinvention; it’s about people hiding who they were behind who they could feasibly be. There is no trick of shadows, or man behind the curtain—most people just assume they don’t know everything, they assume they’re meeting someone fabricated on the fly. Cobbled together in cafes and dive bars; someone who opened their eyes for the first time in Time Square. Blinded by the lights, and the ever present scent of garbage.

Reaching out a hand, you snag the edge of an envelope, this afternoon’s mail, and watch as they topple off the table and onto the couch beside you. Most of it is junk, you can see that right off. A brightly colored magazine called _Clippers_ , which had coupons to everything under the hot lights of Manhattan—from aluminum siding, to uptown pizza. Nothing else catches your attention—a utility bill, a competitive car insurance quote from Geico, and a politician’s stance card. And underneath all that was a thin off-white envelope, with your name written carefully onto the front. _Clarke Griffin_.

Everything else is dropped back onto the cushion, your finger traces the crisp edge of the envelope, and you can just hear the slight crinkle of what is inside. You don’t realize you’ve been waiting for this until it is in your hands; whole weeks and months go by without you thinking of what’s inside. Of the neat, curling handwriting that you can recognize now—but hadn’t before. Elegant and flourishing, yet never a single sign of hesitation.

The post mark it Jamaica, Queen; but you know damn well that this letter didn’t come from Queens. Exhaling, you’re just about to tear your thumb through the top when your mobile rings. Some jaunty tune that is surely the result of Octavia having too much time on her hands. It isn’t until the chorus rolls around that you recognize _I Kissed a Girl_ , by Katy Perry. Hilarious.

Tapping _accept_ , you’re talking before you even have the phone to your ear.

“Really, O?” Exhaling through your nose, you have to smile, “I think you’re slipping, you can’t find anything more embarrassing than Katy Perry?”

Octavia laughs, drowning out the noise filling in behind her, “When strapped for time, I go with honesty. I was really hoping it’d go off in a meeting, and awkward explanations would ensue.”

You shake your head, the letter in your lap not forgotten—but set aside for now. Your eyes are closed, and you wonder if it’s possible to sleep walk your way through daily life. If you could drift off, and still somehow convince Octavia that you didn’t need some kind of social interaction intervention.

Which this clearly is.

“Sorry to disappoint, but my colleague in Oncology has already fulfilled the quota for awkward explanation when they asked me out,” you can tell by the poignant pause that she isn’t impressed, “My forty five year old, _female_ colleague.” Who had been perfectly nice up until the point that you had declined, and then made it her mission to make all future interactions as tamely awkward as possible.

“Go, G-dawg! Cruising through cougar-town!” The catcalls are lost, when whatever party is happening behind her erupts into their own cheers. “We’re all down at the Ark; they’re having a Trivia Crack competition, and we’re down a player.” The invitation is implied, as is the gentle scolding—you can imagine the arched brow and narrowed eyes. Those damned Blakes and their silent judgement.

“How convenient.”

You hear how the cacophony of sound quiets, and you know she’s tucked herself away into a bathroom, or back hallway. “The gang misses you, Clarke.” Oh, no. You have no defense against the worst of Octavia’s ploys— _genuine concern_. You know you’re done for, long before you give in. “Hell, I miss you—and we’re roommates. I feel like I never see you anymore.” 

Not since Finn crashed headfirst into your life, and took whatever self-respect you had with him.

Squeezing your eyes shut, you count to ten in your mind—as if that would somehow create an explanation for your continued absence. It doesn’t work, and as you filter past _ten_ , you’re drawling tiredly, “When?”

She, honest to whatever higher power, _squeaks_ , and you remember why you always give in—Octavia hasn’t given up on you yet, even when you’re pretty intolerable and self-involved.

“An hour; I’ll go tell the gang.” You’ve always been able to hear the smile in her voice—how it stitches through her words, and snares them all together into a verbal grin. You could listen to her yammer on for ages, especially if it is just the mindless comings and goings of everyone in your life. All the things you’ve missed while marching in your single person pity parade. 

It isn’t until the phone is silent against your ear that you realize she’s hung up, and that you’re just laying with it pressed to your cheek—eyes closed, finger crinkling the edge of the envelope.

You met _the_ _gang_ at college, and now years later you think it must have been divine intervention—none of you have anything concrete in common, nothing that would logically keep you together beyond single classes and group projects. You know now why you had held onto them so tightly; because after Lexa left, you’d been adrift, you’d had nothing keeping you tethered to the ground, nothing to keep your feet in place. You hadn’t realized how much she had been your foundation, the person that had made the whole damned world make sense.

And so suddenly she was gone; quieter than a passing thunderstorm, and quicker than a summer night.

Octavia had been the first—bursting into your life two weeks into class, a late acceptance from somewhere in the Midwest. Her brother was already a student at New York University, a criminal law student who had aspirations for the District Attorney’s office. Octavia—Octavia didn’t know what she wanted to major in, one day it was nursing, another it was environmental engineering, then political science. She flitted so easily between all those that you had hardly been able to keep up with her— getting dragged to the next best thing every other week.

Of course, that was how you met Raven—and Monty—and Jasper—and Miller. Before your freshman year had ended, you’d been surrounded by people who didn’t know why you were so shattered inside. They didn’t know why your most prized possession was a 1999 Toyota Celica that spent more time in the shop, than on the road. They didn’t know why you got glassy eyed at the strangest of times—when watching certain movies, or during thunder storms. They didn’t—

They didn’t know Lexa.

As time passed, you felt more comfortable talking about her—your first great love, the girl from down the block. You’d talk about how serious she took tests, even if she didn’t need to study. About how she walked five miles in the rain because her precious car broke down on the highway and she didn’t want to miss your seventeenth birthday. About how she snored so quietly you had to hold still at night to hear her. There’s something to say about hindsight, because while all those things are there—all those moments that made you love her—you can really only remember that final night with crystal clarity.

* * *

**June, 2005. Westchester, New York**

_You wish she wasn’t so damn beautiful, that the rain water in her dark curls, and the way her clothes stick to her skin doesn’t entice. But you’d be lying, because the moment she pulls back enough to look at you—you kiss her. A hard press of lips that move beyond passion, and into desperation. The way she slants her chin to rub her nose along yours; Lexa’s hands paw at your hips, her fingers press into your skin, and you know there will be faint marks in the morning._

_She’s always had a strength about her, an iron cord that’s too clear in the light of day—but at night, when it’s just you, she’s always so gentle. Careful in how she holds you, how she presses you into her arms—holds you down against the mattress._

_Tonight, Lexa doesn’t seem to have control over herself, in the way she nips down the side of your neck, how they get harder with every plaintive moan that tumbles from your lips. You shift to give her more room, your fingers tangling into the curls of her hair—you know nothing but how to say her name. Fingers hastily make quick work of the knot on your robe, pushing it open and slipping inside._

_Hands nearly scalding, despite how cool the rest of her skin is—Lexa’s hands have always been warm, seductively so. They skirt down your sides, stopping to grip your hips and press you against your bedroom wall, before they continue down and lift. The muscles of her back and arms tense as she picks you up—your legs find their way around her, as she presses her hips into you. The warmth of her stomach bleeding through the wet of her shirt, and right where you need her._

_“Clarke,” you’ve never heard her say your name like this, like she’s losing air with each letter, like her lungs are collapsing and she has only this chance to speak. And she says your name. Her breath is hot against your collarbones, her body rocking into you hopelessly, into the needy heat between your legs. Lexa isn’t careful as her fingers grip your thighs, one slipping upward to paw at your breast—dragging her thumb over your nipple. No, she isn’t careful—but she’s still somehow loving._

_The juxtaposition should throw you, should seem unusual or wrong—but it feels too genuine, too honest. You can feel how Lexa trembles as she wraps you around her—not because you’re particularly heavy—but she’s been shaking since she got inside. Since she’d said your name, and asked you to look at her._

_“Please, Clarke,” her voice is quiet, even where her lips press against the shell of your ear, where her teeth graze and bite, “look at me.”_

_And you do—stupidly you do._

_The green of her eyes has darkened, swallowed by the breadth of her pupil, all the control and calm that she has exuded her whole life seems to have left her in this moment. She looks wild, and hungry; as if she simply needs permission to devour you. And, God, do you want her to. Your hand is still lost in the mess of her hair, but you find yourself pulling her forward of capturing her lips, just as she presses into you. Inside you before you can finish the two syllables of her name._

_Just as she will always have a claim on your heart, your body will always remember her—will know her simply by how your body fits into the curve of hers, and of how good she feels inside you._

_“Clarke,” she rasps against the warm skin of your neck, her teeth dragging across your pulse with each moan that falls from your lips. She thrusts into you with abandon, with a hunger that you haven’t encountered before—she wishes to consume you. And you burn for her, whatever fear, and sadness that existed inside you—you’re able to forget for a moment, and allow this girl to have you wholly._

_“I love you” she says, and never have those three words sounded like anything but a declaration—but there’s something mortal, and bleeding about them now, even if your mind can barely think of anything but how close you are. How your muscles bunch, and stretch, pulling Lexa’s fingers deeper into you before with one particularly well places thrust—you tumble over the edge. Screaming your release into Lexa’s shoulder, trapping her pulse between your teeth._

_Lexa’s lips are moving against your skin, soundless promises that you know she won’t say out loud—won’t give actual words. You can only feel how the hand on your hip has gentled, and her index finger traces letters into the sensitive skin of your side. Halfway through you know she’s writing ‘I love you’._

_As your legs loosen their grip, your feet fall to touch the ground, Lexa’s leaning into your body like she can’t imagine standing on her own. Her forehead rests on the wall over your shoulder, her hands having left your skin to press into the plaster at either side of your hips, somehow not touching you, despite crowding you so closely._

_“One for the road, huh?” You don’t know why you say it, you don’t know how the bitterness has clawed its way out of your stomach, and spilled out your mouth. Lexa tenses, her muscles bunching, before she chokes on something that could be either a laugh, or a sob. Something animal and pained._

_“You’re beautiful, Clarke Griffin.” Lexa’s whisper is almost too low to hear, even beside your ear, it cracks somewhere in the middle, and you can almost imagine how she swallows and breaths heavily through her nose. Clearing her throat, trying to swallow back all her hurt, all her emotion—the things that savage her in the night. It was when you felt most needed—in the quiet of night, when she’s cry, or thrash in her sleep; you’d pull her close, you’d press her ear against your heart. And it was like she knew—knew it was you, knew that you loved her. Knew you’d do anything to protect her._

_Who’d hold her now?_

_And like that, the bitterness falls away, slinks back into the dark where it belong. You raise your arms and wrap them around her, try to pull her closer, even as she begins to resist—only begins to, because she’s never been able to deny you anything. Especially this._

_“I love you, Alexandria Coill; today, tomorrow, and every day after.” She’s sobbing, her arms wrapped tight around you, and you can’t find it in yourself to feel the discomfort of her wet clothes pressing against your bare skin. You smooth your hand down the slick fabric of her graduation gown._

_Never has 'I love you' sounded so much like goodbye._

* * *

**October, 2015. New York, New York.**

You don’t realize how lost you’ve been inside your own mind until you’re halfway across the city, even thing has gone quiet and cool. The uptown traffic has filtered into the busier parts of the city, and you’re left with the everyday rabble—men and women who’ve hit the end of their work week and are looking for something to distract them. Something to yank them from the droll of their day, and into the empty promise that makes people flock to the neon lights from every corner of the globe. As if the disappointment found in New York is somehow more important than everywhere else; as if being alone here is better than being alone anywhere else.

Your mobile chirps again, your watch right along with it—yes, you’re one of those.

Maybe you just _want_ to be alone.

Pulling your mobile out of your pocket, you can barely discern the perceived message between all the emojis that Octavia likes to use. If a gun was pressed against your forehead and you were asked to decode this message—you would most likely die.

 **the littlest Blake:** _[dog face] [clock] [gun] [laughing crying face] [crossed out eyes]_

 **the littlest Blake:** _[heart] [heart] [heart] [100]_

You imagine it might be a threat.

It is impossible to miss the Ark once the sun has gone down, because every corner of the building is lined in aggressively adhered neon strips. Blue, and white to match the large sign of clouds, and halos. The Ark had been their hang out since before they could drink—for precisely the reason that they were allowed to drink there regardless. You don’t want to think about how it had been Finn who had known the bartender—back when he had been one of the gang.

Shaking your head, you step inside already bracing for the thrumming music. It vibrates in your molars, all the way down to your unfashionable white sneakers. The second floor looks filled with life, bodies leaning over the railing, people pressed close together. To be young in New York City is something special—it is its own brand of invincibility. The known anonymity. That everyone is someone, and yet—no one.

“Took you long enough” A voice finds you through the noise, an arm loops through your own, and you don’t even glance her way, because that would be giving into Octavia Blake. “I thought you were going to ditch—again.” She’s already pulling you through the crowd, so you chance a glance her way—still dressed in the rumbled business suit she wore to work, even after so many years, it’s strange to imagine Octavia as a fully functional adult.

“I said I was coming.” You insist.

“You say that all the time, and then _don’t_ come.” She glances your way, and you can see the slight smudges where she’d wipes away her make up. You’ve always thought her more beautiful without it. “So, you might understand why I think you’re a big fat liar, G-Dawg.” Her perked brows says she isn’t really mad, and you smile.

Yes, she’s the only one who never gave up on you.

“Well, I’m here. Ready for trivia!” It comes across as faux enthusiasm, but you really are looking forward to seeing everyone. It’s been almost a month since you’ve dodged calls and plead out of plans. About time you buck up and show your face.

It’s only Bellamy, Jasper, and Raven; they’re huddled around a round table, off to the side of nine other round tables. The gathering room is in the back, with a small dais for an announcer, and a much smaller bar than the one out front—your teammates look like they have been taking ample liberty of that bar. You don’t have much faith in winning.

Bellamy stands up when he sees his sister dragging you beside her; as he stands everyone else turns. Jasper pumps a fist in the air, his security guard uniform askew as he leans to far back on the back legs of his chair, his arms pin wheeling to keep him balanced. It’s Raven that inevitably saves him—as she usually does—and catches the back of his chair and rights him. She doesn’t cheer or yell, but she smiles—genuine and small, and it means the world to you.

“Good to see you, princess.” Bellamy says while stepping up to you and engulfing you in his arms, the hug doesn’t seem like much, but he holds you tightly. Your arms wrap around him without prompting and you remember how much you missed them—this motley crew of misfit toys that has somehow become your family. “We missed you,” he whispers, too low for even Octavia to hear, before holding you out at arm’s length.

You don’t want to show how your eyes are close to misting, or how you’re choking up, so instead you punch him in the shoulder and clear your throat. “I had to stop by, I heard trivia was involved, and lord knows you morons need me.”

* * *

It’s well past midnight when you get home; the sound of televisions through your wall have gone away, the dog barking down the hall has gone to sleep. There’s only the faint glow of Manhattan out your living room window. Kicking off your shoes on the tiling near the door—that you used to hate so much, but now kind of like—you feel a little weightless. Like the heavy things that have held you down have detached and floated away. Maybe it was the four beers you’d had over the last few hours, maybe it was how Octavia leaned into your side, of how Jasper laughed every time he said _what’s up, doc_ , or how Raven smacked him in the back of the head every time he said it, or how Bellamy just smiled slightly the whole night.

Your team hadn’t won—the Sky People were on a firm twelve game losing streak, but there were many promises for comebacks. Great, wonderful comebacks.

Shrugging out of your jacket, you actually go through the motion of hanging it up in the closet beside the door. Shuffling across the room, you throw yourself onto the couch, and almost don’t hear the crinkle of paper. Reaching down, and underneath yourself, you find the envelope that had come in the mail—slightly worse for wear, a slight tear where you had begun opening it before Octavia’s phone call. Holding it between your hands, you turn it over—and over—and over—until you simply stare at your name and address written across the front.

 _Clarke Griffin_.

You’d been getting these letters since your sophomore year—the first one had simply shown up one day at your dorm. A simple piece of loose-leaf paper, ripped out of a marble notebook, it seemed. And on it was poetry—not literally, but it seemed like it. Describing places, and people you had never met—painting whole lives out on progressively better paper. Some were post cards, some were photographs. Never names—of places, people…the sender.

They had driven you mad at first, trying to find out who was sending them to you—who was touching parts of your heart that you had thought long forgotten. But you never figured it out—the post mark was always somewhere in the five boroughs, or upstate New York—Westchester, Poughkeepsie, Brewster—and whenever you’d take a day trip, there was never any fulfillment.

You were chasing a ghost who you did not wish to name.

Now—now you look forward to them, but only remember ho you cherish them when you get a new letter. You imagine the sender—hunched over the paper late at night, only the smallest lamp on to write by. Their dark hair pulled back and away from their face, hands trembling fainty, their green eyes squinting without their glasses—

Shaking yourself from the imagery, you settle the letter between your hands, and break the seal keeping the contents locked away. The paper is good stock, firm and well creased—you can imagine how meticulously it was folded—and when you open it, the handwriting is the same from the envelope’s front. As it always is.

It’s shorter than most, but there’s some kind of exuberance to the loops—to the slant of the letters. A returned faith, a refreshing hope.

 

 

> _It stopped raining, it always stops raining; and it’s sad to see it go, even knowing it’ll be back. The days have gotten longer, and it seems as if the dark has finally fallen away. Morning is just at the horizon; gold, and bright, and close. Nipping at the heels of night, chasing it finally back behind the grin of the mountain tops. Everything looks possible in the day; as if all the shadows can be forgotten in favor of something wholesome. Something worthwhile. As if it could be spring forever, with no fear of the winter being shaken from heavy bones._
> 
> _No fear._
> 
> _What would morning look like with no fear?_
> 
> _Wonderful._

You read it twice, pouring over the words like there is some hidden meaning—and there is. You know you’ll spend the next two or three days debating what that meaning is—but in the end, you’ll never really know. Folding the letter carefully, and tucking it back into the envelope, you look out onto the city—you’d always heard how it is _the city that never sleeps_ , but it isn’t until you find yourself up at three in the morning, that you wonder if maybe that isn’t a good thing.

“Wonderful,” you whisper into the silence of the apartment, Octavia having gone home with Bellamy when she decided to start tipping beers over in protest of losing. “I hope it is for you.” The words live someplace inside you when you read them—when you imagine deluges of rain somewhere in the world, and how hopeful morning must seem. The sun slipping up from the mist and gray of dawn, the gold slipping into the dark of night—spilling color into the world.

Getting up, you walk down the hall to your bedroom, not bothering to turn any lights on. It is cast into a cool blue glow from the sign three blocks over that seems to pulse like morning light itself. Pulling out the box sitting on the bottom shelf of your bookcase, you flip the lid and lift one of the bundles from within. All the letters you’d gotten over the years, wrapped neatly together and stashed away for your dark nights.

Tucking the envelope into the bundle, you place it gently back into the box, and close the lid. Put away until you need them again, until you remember you’ve been waiting for the next.

You don’t even bother to take your pants of when you lay down on top of the blankets, hands folding over your stomach, sinking into the comfort of your bed.

You must owe Orpheus a fortune, because the moment your eyelids close, you loosen and fall away.


	3. we can sleep under the stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Come on, Clarke,” she says, stepping around behind to wrap herself around you, fingers tapping a tune against your hipbones as her chin presses into your shoulder. “Have some imagination.” With her warm breath fanning against the edge of your ear, you try—you really do—but the rusting metal death trap in front of you doesn’t change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter three! I've gotten a lot of interest recently about picking this one back up, and while I still don't know exactly where I'm going with this, I'd like to find out. I can't remember if what I'm thinking now was the original premise or not, but hey, I guess we'll all be surprised. As usual, all mistakes are my own, I'll catch them when I read through this with fresh eyes in the morning.

**October, 2015. New York, New York.**

Your shift officially ended fourteen minutes ago. Your relief swaggered in, riding high on too much Monster and organic whole wheat bagels, and you’ve yet to remove yourself from the lounge. Feet resting on the coffee table, the crossword you’d been doing sitting forgotten on your stomach, the pen spinning absently between your fingers. You’re staring at the television, though you aren’t really watching—the weather report seems to be on hold because the delegates from whatever new country trying to enter the UN is pulling up to their nice new embassy. The crawler at the bottom of the screen talking about civil wars, the rocketing prices of gold, and some new makeup fade sweeping through Europe.

You just want the weather.

Aimlessly watching black SUV hustle very important people, into very important buildings, you tap the cap of your pen against your lip. Chewing around the hard edge—a habit you tell yourself you can end at any time—and leaning forward when the screen splashes with weather animations.

Heavy thunderstorms. Great.

Thudding back against the couch, still chewing on the pen cap, you exhale through your nose. Picking up your feet when a nurse edges past with a plate of spaghetti.

“Shouldn’t you be gone, Griffin?” She asks, eyeing you while popping her Pepsi open.

“Getting around to it,” you’ve given up on the crossword, “was checking the weather.”

“Raining cats and dogs,” the nurse mutters, while picking up the remote. “You mind?” Shaking your head, you listlessly watch the flashes of cameras as reporters try to scramble over barrier to get to someone, before it changes to a telenovela.

Turning your eyes down, you look at your crossword, a few dabbles of blue ink line the beginning box of one particular answer; -o------l—a. Jake Griffin had always loved the New York Times crosswords, would announce the clues with a guileless grin, and written whatever you’d said. A child of no more than five or six, you’d had no concept of letter order or accuracy.

“Stuck?”

Looking up, the nurse—whose name you can’t remember—she’s watching you, absently twirling her fork in the pasta. “It’s on the tip of my tongue,”

“Let me give it a shot,” she’s smiling, and you’re squinting—but this woman has obviously been in the medical field to not take offense; the dark circles under your eyes and the hospital pale of your skin must give you away.

Pen tucked behind your ear, you read out loud the hint, “discontinued vehicle meaning _heavenly_ ” you watch how she absently chews on her fork, eyes narrowed in concentration. She’s really thinking about this.

You’re already absently writing the answer— _Toyota Celica_.

Of course.

 ** _One_ —**if only you knew that you were supposed to keep track.

* * *

**August, 2004. Yonkers, New York**

_“What do you think?” You have a hand up to shade your eyes, because you forgot your sunglasses, but you can’t miss the thousand-watt smile being directed your way. Lexa seems to care less about the sun in her eyes, because she’s too busy smoothing her hands over the roof of—a rusted white car. It has dings in it that look years old, the back fender is held on by duct tape, and the crack in the spoiler is pathetic._

_“About?” You trail off, stepping closer to try and see if there’s something inside the rust bucket in front of you. All you see instead is water damage and cracking gray leather seats. The dash is gutted, a big whole where a stereo is supposed to go._

_“My new car,” she preens, all quiet pride, and bright happiness._

_“New?” You implore, a skeptical eyebrow raising because you know it is definitely not that—and you can’t help the equally incredulous, “Car?”_

_Because you’re not sure it’s that, either._

_“I used the money from my summer job to buy it,” green eyes sparkle, as she turns to press her back against the side of the Toyota. You want to tell her to be careful—to inquire about when the last time she had a tetanus shot._

_“You bought it?” When she said she was saving for a car, you thought it would take a little longer than the month she worked at the car wash before her uncle found out and made her quit. “On purpose?”_

_She scowls, eyebrows pulling low, face animated in a way it is only around you._

_“Come on, Clarke,” she says, stepping around behind to wrap herself around you, fingers tapping a tune against your hipbones as her chin presses into your shoulder. “Have some imagination.” With her warm breath fanning against the edge of your ear, you try—you really do—but the rusting metal death trap in front of you doesn’t change._

_“I’m sorry, babe, I am. But I’m not seeing anything,” She sighs, and you smooth hands up her forearms, kneading fingers into the muscles corded there, before following them back down and tangling your fingers with hers where they rest in the cradle of your hips._

_“After we graduate, I’m going to take you to the Grand Canyon in this car,” she whispers, not bothered in the least with your lack of imagination. “All those places you draw from pictures in books; I’m going to take you there.” Her nose tucks behind your ear, and you feel her smile against your neck—you love her most like this, pliant and soft. Wrapped around you because there is no one to impress, no one with expectations—she can be just Lexa, instead of whoever her uncle expects her to be._

_“You can paint the sunset, and we can sleep under the stars—we can go wherever we want.” Her tone has become more wistful, softer and more—something. Full of those things that linger inside her, that you don’t question anymore, not because you don’t think she’ll tell you, but because it makes her sad. It darkens the green of her eyes—turns then gray and dull._

_“What about college, Lexa?” Leaning back into her, this had suddenly become about things much larger than a “new” car. “I’ve already been accepted to NYU,”_

_She holds you tighter, her lips pressed together in a firm line, you can feel how her eyelashes bat against the sensitive skin behind your ear. “That’s your mother’s dream, love,” if you hadn’t been waiting for her answer, you wouldn’t have been able to hear her. “Going to medical school? Being a doctor? That’s what she wants.”_

_She untangles herself and walks around you, keeping your fingers laced in hers, tugging you toward the car until her back is pressed against it and you’ve settled between her thighs. Her hair is out today, wild and curly, falling in her eyes are snarls of dark strands. From this close, she’s squinting slightly so you know she forgot to put her contacts in this morning._

_“I see how you look at those pictures; looking for life in the glossy stills.” God, she’s beautiful. Her fingers comb through your hair, pushing it out of your face until you’ve fallen into her kiss; not caring that you’re in the middle of a very questionable used car lot. Not caring that you’re falling for this impossible dream she’s weaving. “I’ll fix her, and take you there—we can be—we can be **us**.”_

_You’re crying—like an idiot—and she’s running her thumbs below your eyes to catch your tears. Pressing her lips against your eyebrows, then your nose, then your cheeks. Ending with them pressed against your lips, softly, barely there. You’re smiling like a fool, wide and enamored—you’ll never love anyone like you love her._

_But everything is pressing down on you, everything is bright, and present, and consuming—you’re just a girl, in high school. You love Lexa, you want to spend your life with her, but— **but**. So you joke instead, “Fix her? The car doesn’t run?” She’s laughing, and you’re laughing, you can hardly make out her “yet”, but that doesn’t matter._

* * *

  **October, 2015. Rockland County, New York.**

You’ve spent more money keeping this car on the road than you would have if you’d bought one new; the miles have stopped counting, and everything under the hood has been replaced at least once. But some things can’t be counted by odometers—can’t be tallied by timing belts and catalytic converters. It is the melted wax left in the ashtray from a drunken night at the gas station—when no one was sober enough to drive, and coloring books were just a dollar. It is the aftermarket stereo that had been top of the line once-upon-a-time, but now does nothing but force you to buy adapters and cassettes.

The rumble of the engine stutters as you roll toward the light, threatening to stall as it usually does—but it keeps purring, the rattle in the boot getting worse the longer it remains stationary. The shocks need replacing, but with all the rain you haven’t been able to have Bellamy look at it. Haven’t been able to do a lot of thing you should’ve. When the light goes green, you flick on your blinker and merge on to the parkway, the buildings and bustle of an almost city fading into the dense woods of the Appalachians.

The rain pours from the sky like an upended tea kettle; splashing against the windshield, dripping through the crack that spiders across the upper right corner. A reminder of a long forgotten fender bender—the first of many. Lexa had tried to teach you how to drive manual in this car—she’d bring you out to a field, flat and solid, and laughed as you popped the clutch every few minutes. The engine humming, the tires rolling—you had decided the endeavor was impossible, and that it didn’t matter anyway, because Lexa knew, and she wasn’t going anywhere.

Until she did.

Drumming your fingers, you try not to remember what green eyes look like when they smile at you—how lips had pulled into a smile, even if the laugh was silent. How the windshield’s crack had seemed like the worst thing to happen to you—how it had felt lung crushing and awful.

You miss being that naive—you miss the ignorance of not knowing what exactly the world is capable of.

Of what it’ll take away.

Your mobile rings, chirping incessantly against the inside of the jacket you’d tossed over the passenger seat, and you hardly glance at it before letting it ring into the voicemail. You promised your mother you’d see her soon—and while three months would seem to be skirting a little beyond _soon_ , you know your mother won’t be expecting you at all.

You’re trying to be better.

Again _better_ might be too large a word for it, but you’re trying _something_.

Halfway up the Palisades Parkway the dark of the sky lightens to an almost green-gray; the rain starts falling harder, and even with the windshield wipers on their highest speed, you can hardly see the road in front of you. You think you see headlights in the distance, but other than that, no one else is on the road.

“No one’s stupid enough,” you mutter.

You’re going at least ten miles below the speed limit, having turned off the radio—as if that could help you focus on the road more readily—and all you can hear the torrent of water being kicked up into the wheel well.

Just as you’re thinking of pulling off to the side—just as you start doing just that—the rattle in the boot of your car kicks and your wheel locks up, unable to turn. Your dash bursts to life like a scream of color—red, and white, and yellow, and orange—all flashing, all exclaiming something different. You hear your wheels grind, chewing across the wet pavement as pest they can while you careen toward the embankment.

You try to push down on the brake, try to slow your decent as much as you can, but the momentum has already carried you over the edge—the nose tipping down, and sliding sideways in the mud, before the Celica flips—once, twice—and everything goes black.

 ** _Two_** —you wish you had caught on.

* * *

 You dream of that first letter; 

> Looking at someone, it’s impossible to know everything they’ve been through. Some people can hide the important things, it seems. The things that change a person, that make them less of the person they were yesterday. Sometimes that’s a good thing; finding strength and wisdom, casting out demons and bad omens.
> 
> Sometimes it breaks a person—in ways that aren’t readily apparent. Just under the skin and behind the eyes; in all those places that people forget to look because they know that it isn’t always what’s hidden that ruins you, it’s the lack of something. The empathy, and compassion that people cast away because they’ve become a burden, heavy and cumbersome. A weight in the soul that can’t be measures in liters or pounds.
> 
> There’s hope for the day that they want it back; that they feel too light, and they long for the weight of empathy, for the solid weight of compassion.

* * *

The smell of smoke is all around you, filling the cabin of the car, stinging your eyes—and all you can think is that your precious Celica is _ruined_. The dashboard has crumpled, and the roof has caved in where it had rolled— _twice_ —but all you can see through the haze is the little candy cut squares of glass. They dance brightly with the flashing lights of the dashboard—as a child, you’d always been told it was impossible to cut yourself on them, but looking at them now—suspended awkwardly and rattled—they look easily sharp enough to cut.

The car has come to rest on the roof, your body sagging against the seat belt, and it hurts where the shoulder strap has dug into your shoulder—the ache is familiar, the distended pain of a dislocated collarbone. Your left has always been tender, always easily manipulated, ever since you broke it when young. A foreboding encounter with a jungle gym has weaken your shoulder’s constitution that it breaks with the slightest provocation.

There’s something wet in your eyes, and at first you think the smoke has made you cry—the burning in your tear ducts unbearable. But when you go to wipe at the tears, your fingertips come away red. The orange hazards your only light, splashing demonic coloring across the smoke, onto the red on your fingers. The rumbling groan of the car causes the slightest of vibrations in your bones; lingering in you.

No one knew you were coming out this way—you hadn’t passed a single car while driving.

Just as the dark swims, pulling at the edges of your vision, you hear voices—loud, insistent voices that split the evening. Everything is wavering, warbling in and out of focus, the hissing and the droll rattle of the broken vehicle getting lost to the harsh patter of the rain—the dull grayish-green of the sky casting the forest into a murky haze.

“Everything’ll be alright.” The voice comes from the darkness, beyond the cabin lights, beyond the flickering hazards, its low, calming in a way you’re not used to. _Anymore_. You stop struggling against the seatbelt, letting your weight sit in the least painful placement. “We’ve already called the authorities, an ambulance is on the way.” Warm hands graze your cheek, surely slicking themselves with blood, but they don’t stop—trailing up beyond your eye to find the gash that was still sluggishly weeping. Fingers skirting the torn skin, before lightly trailing across your dislocated shoulder and down the back of your neck.

“That shoulder doesn’t look too good, but it seems the worst of it.” You want to snark _are you a doctor_ , but the hand’s back, cupping your cheek. Rubbing gently in a way that seems to have nothing to do with the blood. Your eyes are pressed closed because the smoke clouds, and the blood stings, and the lights throb.

“M-my car,” you murmur, your voice sluggish and tilted, a concussion seems likely with how you’d bounced around the cabin when the car began gyroing. You can hardly hear yourself with how the blood pulses in your ears, but for all you know, you’re yelling—reality hardly seems tethered at the moment. “Is my car okay?”

“It’s just a car,” the person says, and they’re definitely whispering, because they have to repeat themselves twice for you to hear them. Now you’re crying—the tears splash through the blood on your face and get lost into your free hanging hair.

Something sounds like it’s being dragged, the skitter of candy cut glass against the exposed metal of the roof; and then two hands are cupping your cheeks. You can hear the person _shh_ ing you quietly, but you’re shaking your head—or trying to. Those hands hold you in place, preventing you from jostling yourself too much.

“It’s not _just_ a car,” you sob, because your car is _ruined_. The only thing that has kept you grounded this last decade is a smoldering heap at the bottom of a ditch because you couldn’t listen to the weather warning—because you thought you had another week to go to the mechanic, because you’d _forgotten_ what it meant to you. You let yourself forget how this car had kept you together, how you slept in it the whole weekend after _she_ left, how the leather seats felt more like home than your last two apartments.

“I can’t—it was—,” _and now it’s gone_. Your last connection to her is a _gone_ , and you’re breaking in ways worse than broken bones and split skin. The scabs inside you picked at thoughtlessly, just enough to keep them present, even if they didn’t always hurt. A painless mound of scar tissue that will always be more tender—more easily broken—than the rest of your heart. You have a few such scabs on your heart, but only two remain so prominent— _her_ , and your father.

“It’s just a car,” you must be losing touch with reality, because it sounds like they’re crying too; their voice thick and heavy, and a forehead is pressed against yours. You want to protest, want to articulate what exactly this car means to you, but you can only sob soundlessly. Hanging from a seat belt, pressed intimately to a familiar stranger.

“ _Mela op, blinka au.”_ It isn’t the stranger in the cabin with you who’s talking, their voices are low, rough vibrations against your jaw as the stranger sighs. “ _Em klir, heda_.”

“ _Machof, Indra. Ai laik kom ste; hod op gon fisa._ ” The rumble is comforting, like the distant promise of thunder, before the sky darkens, before the lightning flashes. Blinking your eyes open, straining against the smoke and blood, you can make out nothing of their features—just the strong line of their jaw, and the curve of their crown as they duck down to swipe fingers through some kind of liquid on the roof. There’s a frustrated growl as the person whips around and begins moving more insistently than before.

“ _Fleimjus, swif.”_ There’s more than just two hands now—the door to your precious Celica is hit— _bang, bang_ —and after the second, it creaks and caves further inward, until fingers can pry the frame and the metal falls away like a shattered egg shell. What little light exist is blocked by a figure reaching in for you, pressing against the wheel axle, and ignoring the flopping visor.

You lose some time, because the next time you blink your eyes open, there’s a man leaning over you with kind brown eyes, he’s shining a light in your eyes, and he must be alright with what he sees because he smiles softly at you. You blink up at him because he says something to the side that you can’t hear, his lips forming around words you don’t recognize—a language you don’t recognize—but that _accent_ …

“Who—are you?” You whisper, blinking past him at the sky, which you can only just make out past the tree tops. He smiles down at you again, raising a hand to shield your eyes from the few raindrops that make their way through the canopy of leaves.

“Lincoln,” his voice is too rough for a man with such _soft_ eyes, “You’re lucky we saw your accident; there isn’t too much out this way.” You know what he’s doing—you know he saw your wobbling pupils, he’s trying to keep you awake, keep you present. You’ve done it enough yourself to recognize it, even despite the throbbing in your head.

“My mother’s,” swallowing, the pain is in your jaw now, a tightness that hadn’t been there before. The explanation seems ridiculous now, but something else takes your attention. “Who—before?”

Lincoln’s brows dip, his lips press, and he looks over your head at someone standing where you can’t see—but you do see their shadow. A blinking thing, long and dark, as the hazards flash. You crane your neck a little more, and can make out their silhouette—tall, straight backed, arms crossed. You can’t make out anything definite with the lighting behind them, but there’s an _air_ about them—an authority. The orange lights flicker off bits of metal on the shoulders, and down their sides, but before you can try to makes heads or tails of it, Lincoln is gently moving your head back into place.

“That is _heda_.” He hushes, looking now toward the sound of sirens; the red and blue joined the orange blinking, and you have to squeeze your eyes shut because the assault of color burns. “It’ll only be a minute, _Klark_. They’ll take care of you,”

It isn’t until you’ve been loaded into the back of an ambulance—with emergency technicians who put a mask over your nose, your neck encased in foam, and straps keeping you on a backboard—that you realize you’d never given him your name.

 ** _Three_** —oh, of course.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say _hey_ on tumblr @ **civilorange**. Prompts, asks, and salutations welcomed!


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